Game On!
by terrapintarts
Summary: Leo only wants to get home safely, Don wants to play a game, Raph wants time with his bike, and Mike wants to shop! Will any of them get what they want tonight, or are they doomed when the vigilante Nobody shows up? TerrapinTarts Round Robin
1. Chapter 1

Another story created by the Terrapin Tarts Round Robin team: KameTerra, Winnychan, and DeeMG!

* * *

"This is bad."

"What? This is AWESOME!"

"No," Leonardo countered. He lowered his binoculars and gave Mike a stern frown. "Tactically, it's very bad. Will you look at the length of that line? Not to mention the florescent lights, the roaming patrols of security guards..."

"Who knew so many people would show up, even in this weather?" Michelangelo leaned forward off of the rooftop to get a better view, his striped scarf flapping in the wind. Leo grabbed it and yanked him backwards roughly.

"Are you TRYING to get us killed? Tell me again what I am doing out here with you in the dead of night during a snowstorm, risking our lives...?"

"Midnight is not exactly the dead of night, Leo. What are you, seventeen going on total geezer?"

"You can poke fun at me all you like. I only came along to make sure you didn't get yourself caught, and - I'm sorry, Mike. But I'm not seeing a good way to do this. Your winter disguise is not going to stand up to that kind of scrutiny. And judging by the trench coats and gamer geek t-shirts, every kid in that crowd is going to be carrying a smart phone. We'll be on YouTube before the night is over."

"Sweet! I always wanted to go viral."

"That's it. Back to the van. We're going home."

Michelangelo's eyes widened. "What? No!"

"Maybe we can try again tomorrow, when there isn't a three-ring circus taking place outside of Best Buy."

"They'll be sold out tomorrow! Until the next shipment arrives. It'll be the same thing all over town! Maybe as long as a week!"

"Time enough for Casey and April to get back from vacation."

"But... but the world is breaking up! For the next two days, the evil dragon Deathwing is tearing through Azeroth, burninating the countryside!" Mike grabbed Leonardo by his arms and gave his brother a desperate shake. "I did the dishes for HOW many weeks? We are NOT leaving without my game, Leo!"

"Wait! What was that?" Leo broke out of Mike's grip and moved to the other side of the roof, peering at the back of the building. His eyes darkened. "Something's fishy about this."

"I'll say," Mike grumbled. "That kid was, like, ten. I bet he never washed a dish in his life."

Leo ignored him and crouched down low, squinting at the fire escape. "Mike. I think there's a body on the fire escape."

He didn't get an answer. Glancing back, he...didn't see Michelangelo anywhere at all.

"Damn," he muttered, racing back to his original lookout spot. Yes, there was his brother, making a beeline for the bubbling stream of people waiting to buy a game. Leo shook his head in disbelief. "I should leave you here, just to teach you a lesson."

He didn't do it, of course. He watched just long enough to determine that Michelangelo was actually getting in the end of the line, and that the viciously cold weather and blowing snow was enough - momentarily - to keep the humans' curious eyes off of him, and then he ran back to look over the edge of the building at the fire escape again.

It was so hard to see through the snow, and the gloom at the back of the building didn't help matters. Leo peered into the shadows, frowning. It certainly looked like a body, lying on the harsh metal platform about fifteen feet down from the roof. But it might be something else - an old blanket, a pile of trash, even just a trick of the light. "Damn," he said again. He listened carefully for any sounds coming from the front of the building, sounds that might indicate that Mike was in trouble. There was no way he'd be able to hear anything through the wind, though. Leonardo bit his lip, thinking, and studied the shape down below. His hands moved over the heavy coat, feeling the faint outlines of the pouches on his belt, as he considered his options. _Climbing claws, and I could be down there and back before Mike's even moved two feet in that line,_ he decided.

He swung into action.

It took him longer to shed the clumsy disguise of slacks, coat, scarf, and especially the much-loathed shoes, than it did to slip on the climbing claws and begin making his way down the side of the building. The wind whistled around him, not reduced at all by the bulk of the building he clung to. Leo felt for tiny places to brace his toes as he shifted his weight and his balance from hand to hand, uncomfortably aware that he was still six stories off the ground.

Finally, his feet touched frozen metal, and he dropped onto the platform as silently as speed would allow. Before his hands even left the wall, Leonardo was swinging his head around, looking for the dark shape that had seemed so much like a body from up above, even as he hoped he was wrong.

Unfortunately, he was right. It was a body.

Leo drew a sword, the oiled blade slipping free with barely a sound. The person was face down, but even so Leo could tell it was a man, and he approached cautiously, senses strained to the utmost.

The man was dressed warmly in all black.

Yeah…so probably not up here for the view. Dammit.

He couldn't tell if the guy was alive or not, and just to be safe, he held his blade at ready as he prodded the body with one foot.

No movement. No sound.

Leo eased out a breath, sending a column of vapor into the air, and bent to roll the guy over. Instantly, he knew the man was beyond help. Brown eyes stared fixedly back at him, and the dark shine on his abdomen was apparent in spite of the dark clothing. A stab wound, if Leo had to guess. But where was his attacker? And what was he doing on the fire escape?

Easing back slightly until he was hidden more deeply in the shadow of the building, he studied his surroundings closely, looking for a clue. Crouching low, he peered down through the grate of the fire escape, and on the landing below he saw what he was looking for. Though the wind had kept most of the fire escape clear of snow, it was heavy enough and wet enough to stick in some places, and a fluffy piled had accumulated on one side of the platform, directly below the victim. Blood had dripped down through the grate and darkened some of the snow, but that wasn't what drew his focus. There was also the scuff of a boot. On _top_ of the blood.

Someone else had gone down, after this man started to bleed.

Leonardo gave the body a final glance, looking for some other clue. His clothes were not Foot Clan regalia, or any sort of uniform. He might have been a victim, nothing more, but something about the black close-fitting clothes tickled his intuition, something stealthy and professional about them. You could climb fire escapes in the snow and blend into either shadows or crowds in clothes like that.

He tore his gaze away from the body and began to descend the building, still using his Shuko spikes rather than the fire escape in an effort to conceal his own tracks as much as to preserve those left behind by the murderer. The body had still been warm enough to melt the snowflakes dropping onto his skin. The killer might not have gone far.

Abruptly, the tracks ended. Leo had expected them to continue to the ground at least, and had been moving quickly. It startled him to discover virgin snow three stories down from the body. He wound up back-tracking to discover that they did not continue down the next set of rungs but stopped at a half-open window.

He slipped onto the fire escape and approached the window cautiously, hugging the wall and walking only where the overhang kept the snow away. He tentatively peeked in and started to survey the inside of a dark room. As his gaze adjusted to the low light, he realized that there was a man hugging the wall just inside.

The man was looking directly back at him.

Leonardo was so startled to lock with someone's gaze that he whipped back out of sight and drew both blades from their hilts. He stood panting for a moment until his brain caught up with him. As soon as he had seen Leo, the man - Leo had thought maybe he was pointing a gun, but his last image had been of the shadowy figure lifting a finger to his lips.

He forced himself to look again, and sure enough. "Nobody."

The vigilante raised his finger to his lips again, and beckoned with the other hand. _Get in here,_ was a clear demand...and the only thing clear at the moment. Leonardo eased his way inside, careful to not even jostle the window.

It should have been a relief to get inside, out of the cold and the wind. It wasn't, though - Nobody radiated tension. As soon as the turtle was inside, he turned his head toward the door on the other side of the room, and slid along the wall to get a better angle to hear whatever was going on in the hall outside. Leonardo followed as closely as he dared with bare blades in his hands and no real understanding of what was going on.

There were voices in the hall outside. At least two, and possibly three voices, speaking low and quickly in a mix of Japanese, English, and some other language that Leo couldn't place.

He sheathed one blade carefully and stepped up in front of Nobody, ears straining to pick some meaning out of the tangle of language.

"...crazy gamers...can't believe they _something_...all night!"

"I know! It's like a disease, these _something something_..."

"How long before we have to get back downstairs?"

Incredulous, Leo eased forward to get a good look out the door. Three Best Buy employees sat outside on a narrow walkway, passing a cigarette back and forth while they looked down through the railing onto the sales floor below. Judging by their conversation, and the sad appearance of their bright blue shirts, Leonardo guessed that they had been there for a while. He turned back to Nobody with a questioning look.

The vigilante shook his head tightly, his eyes flicking up and over the heads of the smokers in a way that carried meaning.

Leonardo turned back to squint out the door, to see what Nobody might be looking at. He didn't see anything at all, not even a flicker of movement -

- and then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

His head was cleaved in two—at least that's what it felt like. He knew intuitively that any movement would amplify the already throbbing pain, but some deep survival instinct told him it was very, very dangerous to remain still for very long. And deep instinct was all he had to go on right now, because his brain didn't seem to be functioning very well. Leonardo kept his eyes closed for several seconds more, hoping for sound cues that might tell him how desperate his situation was, but he heard only soft scuffing sounds. While he was listening, he cautiously moved his arms and legs, trying to assess whether he was restrained in any way, but he seemed unencumbered.

_Well, at least there's that, _said his sarcastic inner voice._ Now all I have to do is peel myself off the floor… Right. Piece of cake._

Rather than subsiding as he lay still, the pounding ache in his head had intensified. He wasn't even sure if he could get up, much less fight, if it came to that. He cracked his eyes open, but it didn't give him much information, as it appeared he was facing a wall. But it did cause the room to begin spinning. Great, just great.

Leo closed his eyes again, but the sensation that the world was rotating around him didn't go away, and he knew he couldn't lay still much longer. He rolled and lurched to his knees, using the wall for support.

Then he threw up.

"Not the defense I would've gone with," came a harsh whispered voice, "But undeniably effective."

_Nobody. _ Leo spit and wiped his mouth as the spinning room gradually slowed, though the pounding headache remained. He didn't waste energy on a retort, but simply rested as he took in the situation. It looked like they were still in the same place. Nobody was in the far corner using a penlight to examine the upper walls of the small room.

Nearby, on the floor, was a body, bound and gagged and dressed in black. Apparently, the cloaked man had the situation under control.

Leo rose carefully, and made his way over to Nobody. "What happened?" he whispered.

"That guy," Nobody answered with a jerk of his head toward the prone form, "Thought if he took you out and put a knife to your throat, I'd come quietly. Fortunately, your rather… unusual appearance once he got a better look gave me an opening."

"Ah," Leo said as he gingerly probed his head to get a feel for the damage. There was a large lump, as well as some blood there, tacky but not completely dried. He couldn't have been out too long. "Well thanks," he said dryly, "But next time it might be easier if you cleared the room, first."

Nobody shrugged, and continued scanning the wall. Leo squinted up, following the narrow beam of the light as it followed what appeared to be a wire. Finally it disappeared into a ventilation duct. "What is it?" the turtle asked.

"Don't know for sure."

"But you have an idea." It wasn't a question.

Nobody hesitated. "I don't know what they're up to. Yet," he whispered. "But I think they've got this place rigged up with explosives."

* * *

Donatello snatched the shell cell off his belt and pinched it to his shoulder. He tried his best not to snarl but made sure to let the caller hear the unwelcome inconvenience in his tone as he answered, "Hello?" He scrambled to get his mouse hand back in place, and not a moment too soon. The screen in front of him burst into flames.

"Hello, Donatello." Leonardo began, using a tone that was supposed to convey his disapproval of answering the phone with a rude tone. "Sorry if I'm disrupting you, but-"

"There's trouble," Don sighed. All the while he was drilling on the upper row of his keyboard, tapping the numbers and F keys with care. "Didn't I say there would be? Didn't I say it'd be a madhouse?"

"We made a bargain, and he upheld his end of it - look, there's no time for this! We're at Best Buy, and we just-"

"Look, your best bet is to give up trying to contain Mike's antics. Just tell 'em it's a skin condition, or a mental condition, or both. Please hang on a second."

"Don! We could really-" Leo shouted, but his brother had already set the phone down.

Donatello yanked the mic on his headset back into place and growled. "Tank down! I'm evasion tanking! Make that potion tanking! Will you stop healing me and rez the tank please?" He snapped the mic back into the off position and retrieved the phone.

"Leo?"

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Leo, are you there?" he tried again.

"You're playing that game," Leo accused in a very low voice. "The one he's standing in line for. Aren't you? I thought you weren't playing that game anymore?"

"Turns out there's a - a place where you can download it. If you log onto this Battlenet site and enter your-"

"So what you're saying is that Mike and I didn't even have to-"

"I didn't know! Not until you guys had already - I believed you, when you said you could handle taking him. Shit!" He snapped the mic back into place, and accidentally dropped the phone. "Kirby's down! Don't rez me yet, kid. Those minions will be all over you. Stand where the tank showed you."

As he reached for the phone, Don mused that this was definitely a downside to enjoying the new dungeon content. Inevitably he wound up placing his character's life in the hands of twelve-year-olds. The shell cell's readout read 12:26am, and it occurred to him that it was definitely past his priest's bedtime as he pinched it back to his cheek. "Leo?"

"Leo?" he tried again, and then experienced a tiny eureka. If he was seeing the time read-out on shell cell's display, then that meant the call was no longer connected. "Huh."

He looked at the screen and put the mic back into place. "Don't rez me yet, seriously. Yes, I know you're not in combat anymore, but I've still got all that threat and the mobs will just- Like that. Yeah."

Don planted his forehead in his hand and sighed, "Kirby down."

* * *

"Man oh man, my bros are gonna be sorry they missed this!" Mike eyed the big yellow store logo eagerly, hopping from foot to foot. "I'm almost inside!"

"Yeah, right," the kid in front of him scoffed without turning around. He also shifted his weight from foot to foot, but probably more for warmth than enthusiasm. "They ain't lettin' anybody in yet - it just looks like it because they're all bunching up near the door."

Michelangelo craned his neck. "Why aren't they letting anyone in yet? The game was supposed to go on sale at midnight!"

The kid shrugged and hunched his shoulders, clearly not interested in talking any more.

Anxious, Mike dug in his pocket for his phone so he could check the time. "12:10? Are they trying to make me insane? What kind of cruel trick is this, to play on dedicated gamers? I gotta get my game!"

No one was impressed with his energy and enthusiasm. It occurred to Mike that he might want to scale back on the manic energy just a bit, to avoid drawing anyone's attention. He couldn't stop his restless feet from jittering, though.

No one would notice it in the crowd. Most people were moving in some way, moving from foot to foot or rubbing their arms or leaning against their companions. Gamers bunched up near the door, partly out of eagerness to get inside and partly for warmth.

Just as Mike was reaching for his phone again, a cheer went up from the crowd. "Woohoo! We're in!"

The crowd streamed in through the single open door, fanning out only slightly in their mad rush to the pallets stacked in the open space in the middle of the store. A few people - very few - broke away and sprinted up the escalators to the second floor. Mike grinned, watching them go. "Woah, somebody's after a new TV to play on!" He wondered what that would be like, to be able to buy a TV, but dismissed it in favor of worming his way through the crowd to get his hands on one of the tantalizing boxes on the pallet.

He couldn't suppress the cackle of glee as he clutched the box to his chest and squirmed back out of the mass of bodies.

And then..."Damn! Another line!" Mike eyed the people who stood between him and his rightful purchase, and scowled. The fact that the store was warm only barely soothed his anxious need to get out of the store, to get home with his prize. Worse, it seemed like some of the people in line ahead of him were paying with small change!

Mike sighed. _Bored now..._

Reminded, he dug his phone out again. Briefly, he saw that the display read 12:30, before he awkwardly pushed a button with a mittened thumb. "C'mon, bro, answer! I gotta talk to _somebody!_"

No answer.

Mike held the phone out and frowned at the display. Where could Leo be? _I know he didn't wanna come, but he's not so stuffy that he'd leave me here, _Mike thought. _And he's not likely to wander off in pursuit of something shiny - I expected him to answer before the phone rang, in case I was under attack by retail ninjas or something!_

He frowned and pushed another button.

* * *

Don fumbled for the phone without opening his eyes. "What now?" he asked, defeated in more ways than one.

"Woah, dude, step away from the ledge!" Mike caroled in his ear. "I got my game, Don! Right here in my hot little hands!"

"That's great, Mike," Don woke to his imminent danger, and shut off his own game hastily. "Are you on your way back?"

"Well, that's the thing...I'm still in the store. And I can't reach Leo. Did he come home or call or...something?"

"Yeah, he called a minute ago. He - wait. You're in the store, Mike?" Don stood, alarmed. "Actually in the store, standing out in the open?"

"Of course. How else was I gonna get my game?" Mike sounded annoyed. "And this line is moving so slow! What did Leo say?" he demanded, a dizzying conversational swing.

Donatello hadn't paid a lot of attention to Mike's gleefully-planned shopping trip, beyond a cursory glance to make sure that his brothers' phones were charged and in good working order. Somehow he'd had the vague idea that Mike would either find some half-aware teenager to go in the store to buy his game, or that his brothers would make a mad dash inside, buy the game by distracting the clerk and dropping money on the counter, and then dash away before they could be seen. "Mikey! Do you have any idea how many security cameras on are you right now?"

"No, and I don't care!" Mike sounded like he was actually getting testy. "Don! Will you please just tell me: what did Leo want? What did he say?"

"Uh..." Don wracked his brain, but the only thing he remembered was: "He was mad because I downloaded a copy of the game you went to buy," he blurted out, before he could adequately think through the ramifications of that confession.

Silence.

Don ventured, "Mikey? Are you still there?"

More silence.

"You're playing it?" Mike finally said. "Right this second?"

"Yeah?" Don winced. His tone went defensive. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you and Leo but I honestly didn't know before you-"

"Forget about that!" Mike said breathlessly. His voice went creaky as he exclaimed, "Tell me! Is it totally awesome?"

"Yeah," Don admitted apologetically. "I already got the achievement for being killed by Deathwing. It was pretty incredible. He wiped out every player and NPC in the whole zone. I recorded the whole thing on Fraps. I'll play it back for you as soon as you get home?"

"Deal!" Mike beamed. Then his ear to ear grin faded. He said pensively, "But first I got to go find out what happened to Leo."

"He's probably trying to call you as we speak," Don agreed with an apology. "Do - do you need me to come there? I don't mind." He was still feeling slightly guilty for blowing off Leo on the phone earlier.

"Ahh. Let me find Leo first, Donnie. I'll keep you posted."

* * *

Leo was on the phone with Don, about to start in on him with a lecture guaranteed to make him feel properly shamed and guilty, when Nobody suddenly froze and switched off his light. Voices, approaching from beyond the partially open door where they'd first observed the Best Buy staff stealing a cigarette break. Leonardo felt he had no choice but to hang up the phone immediately, and he quickly turned the ringer to "silent" and tucked it away in his belt. Holding his breath, he listened along with Nobody to the voices just outside.

"Ready...did you finish the...? We gotta...pick that up, moron! What did you..." The fragmentary voices faded in and out of hearing, maddeningly.

Nobody turned to Leonardo, the question clear in his stance. Leonardo, in his turn, shrugged.

They inched forward, trying to find a better vantage to hear.

_thump...thump_

Leo and Nobody whipped around, spotting the source of the noise instantly: their captive. The black-clad man was using his tied feet to thump against the floor. "Oh, no, you don't!" Nobody growled, and was on the man instantly. The noise stopped.

Leonardo crouched next to the door, edging ever closer to the voices. His eyes were wide, trying to spot the speakers.

* * *

Raphael had been using a steel lathe, trying to modify a part in his latest attempt to trick out his motorcycle. But it was hard not to notice Donatello hovering in the frame of the door. It was odd enough.

He shut off the noisy machine and gave his brother a pointed stare.

"Can I, uh, bounce something off you?"

Raphael regarded him patiently in the ear-ringing silence and finally grunted, "I'm listening."

"Leo took Mike to Best Buy."

Raph blinked, not sure he was comprehending Don's agitation. "Like, robbing the place?"

"Of course not!" Don spluttered. "It's open for the midnight Cataclysm release."

Still wearing grease up to his elbows, Raphael regarded him blankly.

"For World of Warcraft? As in, the Massively Multiplayer Video game? There will be like, five hundred gamers minimum lined up outside hoping for a copy of the latest expansion? Anyway, it sounds like something went south. Mike went inside even though Leo didn't want him to. Now they've gotten separated and Mike has no idea what happened to Leo. So..."

Raphael's eyebrows lifted. "So?"

"What should we do?" Don concluded meekly.

"You got the keys to the van?" Raph cocked his head and lifted his palms impatiently.

"No?" Don's answer was startled, and he touched his utility belt like he wasn't quite sure.

"Then hop on," Raphael said, turning towards his project bike and throwing one leg over it. He slapped his hand over the garage door opener already mounted to one of the handles.

"It- it doesn't look finished!" Don yelped, wide-eyed, even as he was climbing on.

"Finished enough," Raph quipped as the motorcycle growled to life. Then nothing could be heard over the roar of the mighty engine beneath them as they tore off into the night.

* * *

The voices went on being maddeningly out-of-range. Leonardo pulled back to whisper to Nobody, "How long do you think we've got before they notice their buddy here, " he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the trussed-up man in black, "is gone?"

"They never noticed that the one outside was gone," Nobody shrugged. "They aren't very well-organized." His tone was disapproving, but it was hard to be sure if it was aimed at the criminals generally, or their lack of professionalism in particular.

"The one outside..." Leo turned around to study their captive more closely. "Now, why would they start off a bombing by killing one of their own? What did that gain them?"

"Maybe he objected to blowing up a building full of innocent civilians," Nobody growled. "Got in over his head, and got whacked when he tried to back out."

_Got whacked?_ Leo thought, and shook his head. _You need to watch fewer old gangster movies, Nobody_. Aloud he said: "I don't know...it doesn't feel right." He crouched next to their captive, who regarded him with wide eyes over the thick gag. "Did you search him?"

"Yeah. Nothing interesting," Nobody gestured at a pile of random articles on the far side of the room. "Couple of knives, a walkie-talkie with a dead battery in it, some cords - no ID. Nothing to tell me who these low-lifes are."

"Huh." Leonardo crept silently over to the window and slid it open just enough to scramble back out again. _We just assumed that these guys were together. And you know what they say about 'assume'._ He climbed back up to the platform where he'd found the body, and patted through the dead man's clothes quickly, mouth compressed in distaste at the way the body had already stiffened in the cold. Underneath the outermost layer of nondescript black clothing, he found what he was looking for – something he'd missed in his first, cursory search.

Nobody hovered expectantly inside the window and slid it shut as Leonardo rolled back inside, chafing the cold out of his fingers. "Well?" he demanded.

Leo's expression was grim. "I still don't know who these guys are," he nudged the trussed man, hard, in the ribs, "but they're making big mistakes tonight. That guy out on the fire escape - he's Foot Clan."


	3. Chapter 3

"Now, lemme see if I got this straight," Raphael said into the microphone in his helmet. "Mikey's out buyin' a video game, 'cause he made a deal with Master Splinter and Leo."

"Yes," Donatello's voice was tinny through the jury-rigged speakers.

"And he called a few minutes ago to say everything was cool, and told you _not_ to come...so you decided to go all Leo on him and go get him anyway?"

"It's not quite like that," Don huffed. "It just...well, it feels wrong. Leo's disappeared, and Mike's in a store with sixteen video cameras on the first floor alone! The chances of him being seen or even captured on tape are incredible! We'll be lucky if he _only_ becomes the 21st century equivalent of a Bigfoot video! I can't even begin to imagine the odds that someone will actually try to capture him - "

"And you think having us go in to get him is gonna make those odds better?" Raph said dryly.

Donatello fell silent, which was a sure sign that he was feeling stupid, an unfamiliar sensation for him. Raph didn't mind. To his way of thinking, Don had totally lost sight of the more important part of the story, which was Leo's disappearance. Big Brother just didn't do that, unless something really big was happening.

Four blocks away from the Best Buy, Raphael slowed down and started cruising through the streets slowly, eyes peeled for a particular shape in the snow, which was starting to come down more heavily now. Donatello roused from his sulk long enough to point the way to the parked van, where they stashed the motorcycle for safekeeping, and dug out spare disguises. "You got a lock on Leo's phone?" Raphael asked.

"Yeah," Don fiddled with something on his own phone. "He still doesn't answer when I call."

Raphael made one more attempt to straighten out the brim of his battered hat, then gave it up as hopeless. "Well, let's go get 'im. What time is it?"

"Five 'til one. There's not a lot of time left for those gamers."

* * *

"So what we've got here," Leonardo circled the bound captive slowly, never taking his gaze off of the eyes over the gag, "is a would-be bomber who's either too cocky, or too stupid, to care if he makes an enemy out of the Foot Clan. The _Foot Clan,_ I will point out, is a well-connected, highly experienced, incredibly efficient international criminal organization," he weighted the words carefully, watching his target's reactions, "and from what I can tell, you and your crew are...not."

Something flickered in the man's eyes. Before Leonardo could address it, though, Nobody swung away and headed for the door. "He's not the bomber," the vigilante said in disgust. "He's just a low-level flunky - no one's even noticed he's gone. Besides, based on what I've seen of these guys, I'm gonna say they're both: cocky _and_ stupid."

The captive thrashed in his outrage, glaring at the caped man.

_Good Cop/Bad Cop might actually work_, Leo thought approvingly, impressed at how well Nobody had stepped into the 'bad cop' role. _I'm sure there's some irony there..._ Aloud, he said coolly, "Looks like you hit a nerve." He reached for the gag. "So which one is it? Did you not know the kind of enemy you were making tonight? Or did you not care?"

When the gag was removed, the captive stretched his mouth and jaw, working feeling and a semblance of dignity back into his face. He divided a glare between the turtle and the vigilante the entire time.

It was hard to tell if Nobody was returning the look. "You gonna tell us what's going on?"

The man took in a deep breath...but instead of talking, he started to scream a warning to his partners out in the corridor.

Before he'd gotten very far, Leonardo slammed the gag into his open mouth with enough force to bounce the man's head off the floor. "That _never_ works in real life," he said, furious with himself for even trying it. He whipped his katana out of their sheaths. "Let's try the direct approach."

Nobody nodded approvingly. "I think you've been hanging out with me too much," he rumbled, and slid through the doorway into the corridor.

Just as Leo's foot touched the metallic surface of the walkway outside the room, the lights went out.

* * *

"Do you see Mike?" Don stood up on tiptoe, craning his neck to see into the store from their spot in the alleyway across the street.

Raphael gave him a Look. "Do I look like Superman to you? I didn't get x-ray vision in my mutation, Don," he rolled his eyes and elbowed his brother in the bridge. "Go on, get movin'."

"We can't just go over there!" Donatello hissed, pulling back into the shadows.

"Why not?" Raphael craned his head around ostentatiously. "Nobody on this side of the street to see us, and the snow's comin' down pretty heavy. We'll just look like some kinda overweight gamer-boys - we can slide into that crowd easy, get inside, nab Mike, and be outta there without anybody seein' anything." He grabbed Don's arm and hauled him out of the shadows, overriding his developing protests with a loud, "_**And then**_, we'll go and find out what happened to Fearless."

Don bit down on his protests and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt forward until it totally shadowed his face. "...okay." he said. "Okay. It's not much of a plan, but it's simple and straightforward, and better than anything I've got."

"Damn straight," Raphael grinned. "And then I can get back to workin' on my bike, and - woah!"

Across the street, the lights went out inside the Best Buy.

* * *

Michelangelo sighed and looked at his phone again. Five minutes until 1, and the line had stalled out while the woman at the register harangued the clerk and the manager about the TV her son was supposedly bringing down from the second floor. Apparently this threw such a kink into the store's plans that no one could figure out how to open up another register, and disgruntled gamers were piling up in line.

Shouts and sounds of angry derision began to go up from the line. Michelangelo hunched down into the collar of his coat, feeling suddenly exposed in the crowd.

And then the lights went out.

Because the crowd was made up of New Yorkers, no one screamed in fear. Instead, the hoots and jeers got even louder. Mike staggered as people began to pile up closer to the registers, colliding with each other. "Back off!" he said roughly to the guy behind him, who kept trying to urge him forward. "Pushing doesn't get the power back on - let go! Hey! Bad touch, bad touch!" _I'm gonna have to get out of here before I have to punch someone,_ he thought, eyes wide in the darkness.

Someone grabbed his arm and yanked. "Let go!" he bellowed, throwing all his weight backwards and dropping into a fighting stance.

The pushy guy behind him whined, "Hey, no cutting!"

"Shut up," a familiar voice said casually to the whiner. "Hey, Mikey, get your...ass... in gear, and help us find Leo."

"Raph?" Mike reached for the body on the other end of the grabbing hands. "What are you doing here?"

"Lookin' for a coupla numbskulls who can't be bothered to answer their phones," Raphael's arm came down across his shoulders, hard, and tugged him out of the line. "Donnie! I got one, now let's go find the other one."

"I gotta pay for my game..."

"Leave it!" Don's voice was barely sharp enough to hear over the growing rumble of irritation from the crowded line. "I've already got it at home."

"But~!"

"Leave it!" Raph insisted. He pawed at Michelangelo's hands in the dark, and tugged on the box when he found it. "We don't got time for this. We gotta find Leo and get outta here before the lights come on again."

"How long will that be, Don?" Mike wrestled his game back toward his torso and wrapped his arms across it protectively.

Donatello made a _pfft!_ noise in the dark. "Don't ask me - it's a genuine blackout, not a techno-turtle special. But Raph's right. We need to find Leo and get out of here before the cameras catch all of us!" He grabbed at both of them and pulled them toward the door. "Where did you see him last, Mike?"

"On the roof," Mike planted his feet. "I gotta pay for my game, guys! I worked for weeks for this~!"

"Fer the love of - wait! What was that?" Raphael's grip, where he grabbed Mike's bicep, was rock hard. "Did you guys hear that?"

"What?"

"What?"

Amber lights suddenly flickered on all over the store. They blinked in a steady rhythm - the same rhythm as the alarms that suddenly began to blare at ear-splitting volumes.

"Fire alarm!" Donatello shouted over the din. He pulled on his brothers. "Let's go!"

Raphael, though, was squinting through the pulsing light toward something at the top of the escalator. He shouted something that no one could hear.

The humans were shouting, too, and struggling for the door. A few people ran down the escalators - some of them giving a horrified look at something at their feet as they came into view upstairs. One woman seemed to scream at whatever she saw there, but it was hard to hear in the chaos and confusion. Best Buy employees ran past the turtles, urging people out.

Raph shook himself free of his brother's grip and bolted in the direction of the escalator.

Don and Mike looked at each other in the flashing, maddening light, and then did the only thing that made sense to them: they followed. Mike hit the stalled escalator a half-step ahead of his brother and raced up it, tucking the game box inside his coat and fishing out a pair of nunchuks as he ran. "Raph!"

There was a body at the top of the escalator - a black-clad body that was dripping blood into the treads of the metal risers of the escalator. Mike hopped over it without giving it more than a cursory glance. He felt the change in pressure at his back that meant Don had stopped to glance over the body.

The fire alarm's blare was even louder on the second floor. "…-ill alive!" Don's voice could barely be heard in between the blasts of sound.

Michelangelo couldn't even hear himself think in the din. He didn't really need to think too much at that moment, though –- the flashing amber lights showed him Raph, and Leo, locked in combat with seven or eight black-clad figures. Another flash of light showed him Nobody, also struggling with someone –- maybe more than one "someone" - who was hard to make out behind the billow of the vigilante's cape in the chaos. Mike shouted something that even he couldn't hear over the sound of the fire alarm, and raced to help his brothers.

Their opponents had a variety of small arms -– knives, escrima sticks, butterfly blades, even one katana –- but it seemed like they'd totally missed out on lessons in using them effectively. Some of the weapons lay scattered on the floor, and the katana (which looked, in the flashing light, like it might actually be too bent to use) was sticking decoratively out of a ruined TV screen.

No, it wasn't their skill with their blades that kept Leo's and Raph's hands full in dealing with them. It was the fact that they kept producing guns and pointing them at whichever turtle was closest.

Mike kicked out in pure reflex at the man aiming a gun at him and rolled to the side. Don moved with him, glaring over a pair of escrima sticks he'd just blatantly yanked out the hands of the idiot who (briefly) faced him.

The tallest man aimed a gun at Leo, using the body of his nearest compatriot as a shield. He yelled something no one could hear.

Raphael yelled something back - the only word that made it through the pulsing alarm was a profanity - and readied himself to throw a sai at the would-be shooter.

Another one of the goons (Mike couldn't think of them as anything else) popped up out of nowhere, a pistol held in each hand like a gunslinger, and pointed one barrel at Don...and the other one at Mike.

Raphael glanced around, eyes narrowed, and vibrated with the conflicting desires to both fling the sai, and to stand down in order to protect his brothers. There was no way he could take out every possible shooter - Mike could see it in his stance - and he risked getting one or more brothers shot if he made the wrong move.

He stood down.

Mike and Don backed away from their would-be gunman slowly, grouping together with Leo and Raph, weapons out protectively. Nobody, too, stumbled to join them.

The alarm went on blaring.

While they were held at bay, two of the goons turned back to what they must've been doing when Leo and Nobody interrupted them - working over a small black plastic box wired into the building's power - while the rest of them held guns ready.

Mike glanced at Leo. _What do we do now?_ He didn't say it out loud - there wasn't any point.

Leo understood the look anyway, and shook his head slightly, which Mike chose to interpret as: _I'm working on that._ Behind him, Don peered over his shoulder to look at the work being done with the black box, and compressed his mouth down into a tight line. _Either they're doing really sloppy work, or that box spells bad news for us,_ Mike translated his expression.

Before he could turn to see whatever Raph was thinking, there was a sudden small explosion in the air between the turtles and the goons.

Gun fire ripped through the blare of the alarms.

Mike found himself shoved to the ground by Leonardo, who had somehow managed to drag Don down out of the path of the bullets, too. Only Raph had managed to evade their elder brother's protective instincts, and flung himself to the side behind a TV display stand with Nobody.

Before Mike could shove Leo off, black smoke billowed around all of them.

"Foot!" Leo shouted in his ear. It was barely loud enough to be heard over the blaring alarm. He dragged Mike and Don backwards with him, staying low to the floor, and they crawled away from the smoke as quickly as they could. They got two aisles away before they cautiously got to their feet and peered over the top of the fixtures.

The Foot Elite stood there, between the turtles and the goons. Mike didn't think he could read them as well as he could his brothers, but even to his eyes, they looked pissed.

_Of course, they __**always**__ look pissed,_ he thought, right before his eye was caught on the slim, rigidly held stance of the woman in the center of the Elite. "Karai!"

"Yes," and he didn't need to read her expression to be sure that _she_ was pissed off! "It appears that I must thank you, turtles. You delayed these fools long enough for us to get here to capture them." She surveyed the goons coolly. Mike craned his neck to see - yes, they were all there, on their knees in front of Karai. The Foot ninja who were tying their arms behind their backs didn't seem to be doing it very gently, either.

It took Mike another heartbeat to realize that he actually heard her. "Hey, the alarm's off!" His ears were still ringing so badly that he hadn't noticed it until that moment. The amber lights went on flashing, but that was a lot easier to take without the accompanying sound!

"Shh!" Don's hand clamped on his wrist.

Leonardo stepped forward, his katana held low, but still unsheathed - a measure of his deep unease around both Karai and the Elite. "You knew about these men?"

"Of course," she said in the disdainful way that she had. "I have had Foot ninja following them for weeks. They are former members of the Foot Clan, or the Purple Dragons, who were forced out for one reason or another. They have been attempting to entice another of our... business rivals... to come to New York to establish an outpost here. This event tonight was to be both their debut, and a blatant warning to the Foot Clan that they were successful in getting the attention of our...business rivals."

"Another clan," Don realized out loud.

"They will be very disappointed, in Japan, to know how incompetent their would-be advance forces were," Karai hefted the black plastic box and narrowed her eyes at it. "This was supposed to go off at 1. They bungled their mission so badly that they only succeeded in cutting off the power to the building."

"Go off at 1?" Leo repeated. His eyes flicked to each of his brothers in turn, and his mouth tightened down. "All of my brothers were here by then. If it had gone off ~!"

She turned and met his hard expression. "Yes. If it had gone off." Karai tossed the box over her shoulder without looking. A Foot ninja caught the box before it could hit a fixture. "When the ninja following them tonight did not report in, we came looking for him."

"I'm...grateful for your timing," Leo said it like it tasted bad. "What will you do with them?"

Karai glanced over at the ninjas who carried the limp body of the unconscious man from the escalator, and a trussed-up man from somewhere out of the darkness overhead. "That is not your concern, Leonardo. I have already told you more than you needed to know. For now...I believe I hear sirens coming. We must all leave this place."

"Wait~!" Leo stepped forward, but of course it was too late. Another small explosion from the Foot Elite, and billowing black smoke obscured everything. By the time it thinned out, the Foot were all gone with their prisoners...and the turtles could hear the sirens, too.

"Time to go," Raphael said grimly. "Where's the escape route, Leo?"

"This way," he sheathed his katana and led the way up onto a metal catwalk suspended above the second floor, and then out and up onto the roof.

They all stood just inside the shadows and watched the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars and fire trucks for a long moment. "I can't believe they got away," Nobody said finally.

Leo stirred. "They didn't. I can promise you that, Nobody - whatever else happens tonight because of those incompetents, you can be certain that they are definitely getting what they deserve."

Michelangelo risked a peek over the edge, then turned away, tucking his scarf into his open coat. "Man, those gamers won't ever know how close they came to _really_ being involved in some kind of war!" He slid the 'chucks back inside his coat, too. "And after all that, I still didn't get my...wait, what?" his fingers brushed up against a crushed pasteboard box inside his coat. "My game!"

"And you still didn't pay for it," Raph smacked him on the back of the head.

"Mail the money to them tomorrow, unless you want us to start calling you a shoplifter," Don suggested.

"Ooh, I'm a shoplifter. Nobody, are you gonna arrest me...?" He looked around at the blowing snow, and only found his brothers looking back at him. "Nobody?"

"I think he's letting you get away with it, Mikey," Leo trudged over and picked up his discarded civilian gear from where he'd left it. "C'mon, guys - let's go home."


End file.
